CICW has awarded Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants for over 20 years to teacher-scholars and worshiping communities in 45+ states and provinces and across 40+ denominations and traditions—including Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, non-denominational, and other Protestant communities.


While worship styles and practices vary greatly across these traditions, the grant projects typically explore at least one of CICW’s ten core convictions related to worship. Explore the hundreds of projects we’ve funded across both streams of the program.

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Worshiping Communities Education/Leadership

University Congregational United Church of Christ (2022)

To deeply integrate worship and other congregational activities so that the church’s engagement of cross-cultural relationships, education, justice, and collaboration weaves seamlessly with worship.

Worshiping Communities
Seattle, washington
2022
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Teacher-Scholar Formation Music

University of Notre Dame Folk Choir

J.J. Wright

To teach Christian communities how to see grace and mercy in loss and suffering by enabling young people to contemplate difficult questions as they rehearse and perform the newly composed Passion for the Innocents.

Teacher-Scholar
South Bend, indiana
2022
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Teacher-Scholar Public Witness Worship Resources

Villanova University

Wonchul Shin

To provide Asian and Asian-American worshiping communities with rich Pan-Asian theological resources for their public worship practice as a form of public witness that will proclaim the dignity of the Asian and Asian-American community and transform the culture of anti-Asian violence and racism.

Teacher-Scholar
Villanova, pennsylvania
2022
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Teacher-Scholar Historical Worship Leadership

Yale University

Melanie Ross

To research the worship music industry, Christian higher education, and congregational ministry, in order to explore the intersection of liturgy and economics, to provide a history of how worship became part of the commercial music and entertainment industry, and to understand the ways that congregations and Christian colleges that train future worship leaders have responded to this shift.

Teacher-Scholar
New Haven, connecticut
2022
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Teacher-Scholar Visual Arts

Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS)

Rebecca Slough

To explore how the spatial and visual dimensions of congregational worship shape diverse Anabaptist communities, in order to create resources that facilitate culturally-informed reflection on visual arts in worship and to curate visual art resources for use in Anabaptist worship. 

Teacher-Scholar
Elkhart, indiana
2021
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Teacher-Scholar Worship Practices

Candler School of Theology

Antonio Alonso

To tell the story of the theological significance of ordinary material objects and the theological convictions they express, in order to encourage deeper attentiveness to the diverse materials through which we worship God.

Teacher-Scholar
Atlanta, georgia
2021
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Worshiping Communities Visual Arts

Cardiphonia, a department of Artists in Christian Testimony Intl.

To curate art and liturgy into an experience of Stations of the Resurrection that will promote a deeper engagement with the season of Eastertide and the grace of Christ's resurrection.

Worshiping Communities
Brentwood, tennessee
2021
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